We've got the Samsung Impression SGH-A877 for ATT in house, and it is indeed a cool and interesting feature phone. The 3.2" resistive touch screen and TouchWiz user interface are on the surface quite similar to the Samsung Eternity, but there's one difference: the Impression has an AMOLED (active matrix organic LED display) display and that makes it stunningly vibrant, rich and bright. The Eternity literally pales next to it.

Other features include a really roomy QWERTY keyboard, 400 x 240 pixel display, a thin design (though this isn't a small phone), Bluetooth with A2DP, 3 megapixel camera, GPS with AT&T Navigator, a music player, HTML web browser and really excellent video CV video playback. It sells for $199 with a 2 year contract on AT&T and $399 without contract.

It's obviously not as good as the autofocus, 8 megapixel Samsung Memoir but it is better than the Samsung Eternity. The Samsung Impression has a 3 megapixel fixed focus lens, so it takes pretty good shots but not as amazing as the Memoir or Nokia N96.

I went into an AT&T store and checked out the Impression. What I learned is I like autofocus camera phones -- the pics I took with the Impression and e-mailed to myself on my personal e-mail were in focus in part of the image and blurry in the rest (despite being taken in the brightly lit store). By comparison I did the same thing with Verizon's LG Versa which is a 2 megapixel camera with autofocus had a very sharp image in the pics I e-mailed to myself.

So I've ruled out the Impression as I want an autofocus camera -- I really liked a lot about the Impression but the camera is terrible in my opinion.

I haven't had problems with lack of focus in parts of an image. Generally a fixed focus lens is permanently focused from approx. 3 feet to infinity and everything is uniformly sharp though not as sharp as a good autofocus. It uses a very small aperture to accomplish this, and thus not a lot of light reaches the sensor, so there's less detail (which translates into less apparent sharpness throughout the image) and it has more difficulty dealing with low light situations.

I've noticed that I have to hold the Samsung Impression quite still to get a sharp shot with good focus-- it's fairly susceptible to camera shake. A little movement translates into very minor blur that reduces sharpness and apparent focus. The curved, slippery sides and slider may be the culprit that increases movement.

Hopefully, AT&T will release some serious camera phones in the future. T-Mobile has been kicking butt in that department lately and it's time for AT&T to follow suit!